Former Oregon State linebacker Omar Speights has signed with LSU and will be with the Tigers this spring, a source confirmed. WAFB’s Jacques Doucet had it first.
Speights, a First-Team All-PAC-12 selection, is a Tiger. After entering the portal a week ago, Speights received significant interest from LSU, along with a number of other top programs including Alabama, before ultimately committing to Brian Kelly and the Tigers.
Speights, who has one year of college eligibility remaining, will enroll at LSU and participate in spring ball as a graduate transfer.
It was a dominant final season with the Beavers in 2022. Speights ended the year with 83 tackles and eight tackles for loss with Oregon State. In four seasons up north, he finished his career with 308 total tackles.
LSU will now have five scholarship linebackers on roster for spring ball as of right now in Speights, Harold Perkins, Greg Penn III, West Weeks and early enrollee Whit Weeks. The final linebacker that will be on roster for the 2023 season is Christian Brathwaite.
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A player who can step in and make an immediate impact for the Tigers, Kelly and his staff had their foot on the gas for one of the top defensive players remaining in the transfer portal and now have him headed to Baton Rouge.
Brian Kelly’s Transfer Portal Message:
“They have got to be the right fit first,” Kelly said. “They have to recognize the value of an education from LSU. They have to have the right traits. We are not just open for business. We’re not just putting a sign up saying, hey, we are going to take whoever. They have to be the right fit. I prefer that they are from the state of Louisiana if we can find them. And then we are going to address needs based upon how that freshman class marries into it by the particular needs by position class.
“So we are not going to overload a particular position group. In other words, if we have got three or four wide receivers that are freshmen coming in, you may not see a heavy influence in the portal in that position.
“We are going to develop based upon our freshman class, too. So we are doing this at the same time, and also allowing our program to be younger, too. We want to bring both of these along. We don’t always want to be a turn-it-over program where we are bringing in transfers and turning the program over.”
